Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Crown of Thorns...

So, I'm sitting at home doing absolutely nothing again... a ball joint went out on my drivers side front tire, and I certainly can't drive with the tire at an angle, so there we are...



One of the side effects of having the only cactus garden in the neighborhood, with spiny plants prominently displayed in the front yard, is that I occasionally get annonymous "donations." I haven't quite figured out if this is an advantage or a disadvantage... but I went out the front door this morning and practically tripped over a prickly item on my front step... turned out to be a Crown of Thorns, Euphorbia milli var. splendens...

It origionally looked half dead... but after a little attention ie: pulling off a dead branch, several dead leaves and flowers, then repotting, it's not half bad. It even has some new blooms developing...



I think that this is a plant somebody aquired at Christmas, as it had traces of glitter on some of the leaves and it was in one of those plastic nursery pots and sleaves... somebody probably decided to leave it on my porch, thinking that the local cactus freak would love it. Either that or they were hoping I'd end up crippled with thorns in my ankles...

Now, Crown of Thorns aren't high on my list of favorite plants... They're one of the plants that I remember every old lady in the neighborhood had growing on the front porch when I was a kid. Sometimes planted in an old enamel cooking pot. I don't dislike them, but it certainly never occured to me to aquire one. They're nice enough when they bloom, and if properly taken care of, there's usually a bloom or two around. I'm informed in my reading that in very hot climates, they may go dormant in the summer, but I think I'll probably be able to keep it going. The larger leaves point out that this probably isn't one of the dwarf varieties, so it might actually get to a fairly large size... which means I now possess yet another large spiney thing to carry into the house every winter.

4 comments:

  1. I wish people would leave cacti and succulents at my house! Have you always lived in Texas? I've never seen an old lady with these on their porch. Most of the old ladies in my home town had Boston Ferns.
    Aiyana

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  2. Aiyana... although you're posting under pudgeducks account... I grew up in a very small town in Illinois. All the old ladies had the same plants... I suspect one got a plant and shared 'starts' with all the others. There were these, aloe veras, and geraniums... all of which spent the winter in kitchen or dining room windows.

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  3. LOL...you lucky guy!!! I actually love the bare stalks on these things...I want a big huge one for my yard...and I just found a place that sells them here! I like lots of bare stalks with just a few leaves on the ends! Lovely, just lovely!!!

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  4. Sorry! Darn. I did it again! Pudge is a friend of mine and a former neighbor on the lake, and I occasionally visit and help her prune her Palo Verde tree, as well as clean up and update her computer while I'm there. I have, more than once, forgot to sign out of her account before doing my blog rounds. There's no telling how many folks I've left comments with, on her account. I know I've done it with Julie before. Pudge has told me that she hopes I'm not leaving controversial comments on people's blogs using her photo. She told me before she was going to fire me if I did it again. I think I've now joined the ranks of the unemployed!
    Aiyana

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